This past weekend I got to experience a different kind of race weekend. For the first time in recent memory, the BKL Festival didn’t overlap with a Junior race or some other engagement. After a string of busy, stressful, and chaotic race weekends, Sara, Rick and I were able to head down to Rikert and do wax support and race-day action involving ears on hats, parades, cider and doughnut missions, and a real party on snow.
Man, THIS is the kind of thing that makes New England skiing so great! Actually, you can say that about so many aspects of our skiing world, from this youngest level all the way up to the Masters racing scene. I often get to see all the fun our BKL skiers are having at the Range, but seldom do I get to watch them race other than the Skiathlon or a few other overlapping events. It was a ton of fun to see such strong efforts, and there was a real vibe of fun and joy even during the races themselves.
The true testament of such an infectious attitude? I was staying at my mother’s house in nearby Ferrisburgh for the weekend…after the first day, I came home raving about the day and sharing all the photos from Dave Priganc. Before long my mom had dug out the old photo albums and was riffling through photos from some of my trips to various BKL Festivals of years (and millennia?) past: namely Notchview in 2001 and Waterville Valley in gasp 1999. The oldest skiers at this year’s festival were still not even born yet when I was “competing” at those festivals, but it’s fun to look at the old festival packets they printed out and pick out some familiar participant names…Sophie Caldwell, Ida Sargent, Alex Howe…
Whether or not some of the top names at the 2019 BKL Fest will be on the World Cup in 10 years remains to be seen. But the cool part is looking at many other names who aren’t on the World Cup but are still involved in the ski world…a few names you may have heard of:
Cross Country Skier Magazine editor Danny Kuzio, Skida founder Corrine Prevot, current coaches like Anna Schultz (Craftsbury), Kate Barton (Midd), Perry Thomas (UVM), Jake Barton (Craftsbury), Shane MacDowell (NYSEF)…
When you have a sport that brings so many different people together beyond just racing fast, you can bet that many of this year’s festival participants will be skiers for life, taking the sport in all sorts of new and exciting directions!
Brady arrived on Sunday after a very successful swim meet Saturday. He threw down a fast race…
…but wasn’t afraid to throw out the tongue mid-race!
Is it possible to find a photo of the Carlson siblings without awesome technique? Kate and Taylor must’ve picked up some more Scando-tips since they just got back from skiing in Norway over break!
The weekend was also a chance to see that next generation of Eastern Cup competitors! The 7/8 field is a mix of athletes, some of whom are U16s headed to Junior Nationals already. Our club has some strong athletes who are headed in that direction next year, and after the races on Sunday there was already a buzz about all the training that we were going to do over the summer to take another step forward in 2019/2020. Of course, you also had the really cool “graduation” ceremony where these athletes were honored as they transition up. Congrats!
Some of next year’s Juniors!
Julia and Finley hamming it up
There are SO MANY more great photos on Dave’s Flickr site…be sure to check it out!
The final element this weekend helped me see in yet another new light was just how great our coaches are for helping provide the right environment for MNC to bring out the best in young athletes. It isn’t always easy to ski in the cold day-in and day-out, and we all know the Range isn’t the most family-friendly place to ski. But we’ve got a ton of creative coaches who make it happen. When you see everyone together embracing skiing, that creativity and dedication really shows. THANK YOU to Rosemary and ALL of our BKL coaches!
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